Monthly Archives: September 2026

Conservatives and Empathy

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Conservatives against empathy: excuses for selfishness; Another piece about boarding houses, once banned, perhaps now more appropriate than ever; Recalling a 50-year-old thesis about how human stupidity drags societies down; Quotes from Thomas L. Friedman and Paul Krugman about Donald … Continue reading →

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A World We Can’t Trust

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Bill McKibben on how we weren’t built for a world like this; Locus server issues today; More destruction: Trump scales back fuel emission standards, and removes supports for LGBTQ+ folks; How Trump’s new AI-powered America.gov tells truths that counter Trump’s … Continue reading →

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Attending the Ballet

Posted on Monday 28 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

No post yesterday; we were busy attending a concert, with dinner afterwards. Yesterday we attended Oscar, a ballet at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus, staged by The Australian Ballet, on tour, with the local Berkeley Symphony playing the … Continue reading →

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Dicey Claims

Posted on Saturday 26 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

No, Noah’s Ark has not been found, again; Evidence suggests Trump wanted the Kennedy Center to fall into ruin; Lenders around the world don’t trust the US; An example of how AI is making things worse, by claiming credit for … Continue reading →

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There Is Only So Much Land

Posted on Friday 25 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne on why neither Israel nor Palestine wants a two-state solution; Fareed Zakaria claims the US and China must eventually adapt, even cooperate; Robert Reich on what he’s heard from foreign leaders about America and Trump; – – – … Continue reading →

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Abdication

Posted on Thursday 24 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump abdicates as leader of the free world; Or maybe of the entire world, in favor of China; How failure to address existential threats is costing America and the world; Brief items: A nation should be run like a household, … Continue reading →

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Ian Stewart: NATURE’S NUMBERS

Posted on Thursday 24 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: The Unreal Reality of Mathematics (Basic Books, 1995, x + 164pp, including 14pp of further reading and index) One more in this series for now. Despite the title, this books’ topic is not that that of Martin Rees in … Continue reading →

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What Is It Conservatives Want to Conserve?

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The worst of the past? The protocols of primitive human nature? That’s what it seems like. Are they aware of this? Trump wants to make America 1988 again; Trump got played on the Greenland deal; The superficiality of Fox news … Continue reading →

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Richard Dawkins: RIVER OUT OF EDEN

Posted on Wednesday 23 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: A Darwinian View of Life (Basic Books, March 1995, xiii + 172pp, including 11pp Bibliography and further reading, and index.) By the time Dawkins wrote this short book for the publisher’s Science Masters series, he had already published three … Continue reading →

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Cognitive Abilities and Limitations

Posted on Tuesday 22 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

How AI is being used to solve math problems that humans have been unable to; How anti-vaxxers are at core angry, fearful, and despairing; NYT’s Brett Stephens complains that none of the National Book Award finalists are by or about … Continue reading →

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